Chapter 3 – Cracks in the Glass

It started with a girl’s name I didn’t recognize.

An unfamiliar notification on his phone. I wasn’t looking for it, but it lit up while he was in the shower. A heart emoji. A “can’t wait to see you again.”

My stomach flipped.

I stared at it, frozen.

Then I did the one thing I promised myself I’d never do: I went through his phone.

The further I scrolled, the more I broke.

Dozens of messages. Flirty comments. Late-night “u up?” texts. Snapchat usernames I’d never seen. Screenshots of I*******m stories. Girls I didn’t know. Girls I did.

One said, “Your girl’s cute, but you know I’m better.”

He replied with a laughing emoji.

I felt sick.

The person I loved — who held me at night and called me his peace — had a whole world I wasn’t part of. A digital playground where I was just background noise.

When he came out of the shower, towel low on his waist, smile lazy and sweet, I couldn’t speak.

I just held up the phone.

“What is this?”

He squinted, barely glancing at the screen. “Why are you going through my phone?”

“That’s your reaction?”

He took the phone from my hand, calm — too calm — and tossed it on the bed. “You’re being dramatic.”

“Dramatic?” My voice cracked. “You’re literally cheating on me.”

He scoffed. “It’s just talking. Nothing happened.”

As if betrayal only counted once it was physical.

I sat on the edge of the bed, hands shaking. “So none of this means anything to you?”

“You’re overthinking. You always do this.”

And that was his thing. He’d flip it. Make me the problem. Somehow, my hurt became evidence that I was unstable. Emotional. Crazy.

He made me question my own reality — and for a second, it worked.

I actually apologized.

“I’m sorry I went through your phone. I just… I felt something was off.”

He kissed my forehead and whispered, “Don’t ruin a good thing, baby.”

But the damage was done.

Even if I stayed, something inside me cracked. A part of me that trusted him. A part that believed his words when he said I was his only.

I started second-guessing everything. Every late-night hangout. Every hour he was “too busy to reply.” Every new follower. Every tagged photo.

And he knew it.

He used my insecurity against me.

“If you can’t handle dating someone like me, maybe you’re not ready for this.”

He was right. I wasn’t ready.

Not for this kind of love — the kind that felt like walking through broken glass barefoot and calling it a dance.

But I wasn’t ready to leave either.

We were in this toxic rhythm.

Good days where he’d wrap me in his arms and say, “You’re the only girl I’d ever want.”

And bad nights where he’d disappear, go drinking, and come back smelling like someone else’s perfume — pretending not to notice the look on my face.

It wasn’t love.

It was addiction.

I craved the highs so badly that I tolerated the lows.

I kept hoping he’d go back to the version of him I met at the start. The guy who messaged me sweet things at 2 AM. The one who held my hand in front of everyone. The one who said he’d never hurt me.

But I realised that man never really existed.

He was a character in a story he sold me — and I bought it.

One night, I stayed up crying while he slept beside me, dead to the world.

I stared at the ceiling, thinking: This isn’t what love is supposed to feel like.

I remembered how I used to pray for a partner who’d protect my heart. Who’d walk beside me, not ahead or behind.

Now, I was praying just to feel okay in my own relationship.

The saddest part?

I still loved him.

Even after everything.

Because when you love someone that deeply, you don’t just stop.

You hold on, even as they’re the ones letting go.

I told no one what I found.

I was too ashamed.

Ashamed that I was still there. Ashamed that I believed his lies. Ashamed that the girl who used to be so strong now cried in bathrooms and checked his location like it was a full-time job.

I lost pieces of myself every time I forgave him.

But I didn’t know how to walk away from someone I had built a future around — even if it was built on broken promises and borrowed time.

So I stayed.

Even as I cracked a little more each day.

The day things truly shifted was when I ran into one of the girls.

It was at a bar. She came up to me.

“You’re still with him?”

I blinked. “Do I know you?”

She smiled — not cruelly, just knowingly. “He told me you two broke up. A while ago.”

I didn’t cry. I didn’t yell. I just walked out.

Got in my car.

Sat there in silence.

That’s when I realized:

He wasn’t just breaking my heart.

He was breaking my spirit.

And if I stayed any longer…

There’d be nothing left to salvage.